Southern Electric wrong meter, wrong advice

lovelylily

Our energy bill is £700 per quarter. We have been discussing this with Southern Electric to try and work out if we are on the right tariff or why the charges are so high. In the course of these conversations, as early as June of last year, they were aware that we had gas central heating. They assured us that we were on the right tariff for the meter that we have, but we have since learned that we were on the wrong meter (I didn't even know there could be a right or wrong meter).

We have discovered by accident that the economy 7 tariff we are on is only suitable for storage heaters and not GCH, and Southern Electric have told us that we should have told them that we don't have storage heaters when we took the contract out. It wouldn't even have occurred to me to tell them what we didn't have and we've been paying over the odds for a couple of years. They say the difference is only about £90 per year and it's our fault anyway for not telling them we didn't have storage heaters. Thoughts?

Nada666

It is perfectly possible to take advantageous use of an E7 tariff when you have gas central heating. It is up to you whether or not to change. It is not your supplier's job or business to interrogate you what you are planning to do.

lovelylily

Oh, I hadn't realised that we could use E7 advantageously with GCH. From what they have now explained to us we were on completely the wrong tariff (despite assuring us for months that we weren't).

Sorry to be completely clueless, but how do we use it advantageously? Most of our usage is unavoidably during the day as we have a very young family and my husband works from home.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Use all electricity where possible at night. Keep the gas consumption to a minimum.

If that's not possible, you'll probably have to investigate changing your meter to a single rate.

Do you pay your bills quarterly?

molerat

£700 per quarter is a pretty big bill, what is your consumption of gas and electricity in kWh ? What are your day and night figures for the electric ?

lovelylily

We do pay quarterly. Not sure what Kwh we use, will have to check.

It's impossible for us to use most of our electricity at night, as we have a young family and are both home all day and often go to sleep quite early.

Since moving to this house we couldn't believe the size of the bills which is why we have been in constant talks with Southern Electric to see if we are on the right tariff which they always said we were. I wouldn't mind if we'd never asked the question or bothered to check, but we did seek advice from them and went through everything and they said we were on the right tariff so just advised insulation etc. They now say that we were on the right tariff for the meter that we had but just had the wrong meter. I don't get it really because I'm googling it and economy 7 comes up as a tariff, not a meter. I feel a bit bamboozled really. Is it a tariff or a meter? If it's a tariff, then we've been misadvised as they definitely told us we were on the right tariff.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

I'm afraid there's no such thing as the right tariff. Standard Tariff, which you're almost certainly on, is always the suppliers most expensive. Paying quarterly likewise. Having an E7 meter without taking advantage - triple whammy.

None of this is really the suppliers fault though. They can't intuit what customers needs or desires are. You have an E7 meter, and you are on an E7 tariff. They've done their job.

Put your details into a price comparison site - there are plenty of threads on here to help you with that. And get SSE to take payment by DD - you're throwing money away paying quarterly.

lovelylily

They seem to think there is a right / wrong tariff because today they've told us that we are on the wrong one. It's just a shame they didn't tell us that over 6 months ago when we actually asked their advice.

molerat

You are not so much on "the wrong tariff" as on a tariff that is not economically compatible with your energy use patterns. For E7 to be economical you need to use around 40% of your energy during the off peak hours. It is down to you to make that decision, there are people on here who do use E7 economically without using it for heating. Your biggest problem is that you have not taken ownership of your energy consumption and are just paying the bills as they come in, not really looking at them and analysing them. When you do that you can make informed decisions on what you need to do to reduce your bills.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

E7 is really for storage heating, though if you can use your washing machine, tumble dryer, oven, during the cheap rate, you get full benefit.

It may be that there was once storage heaters in the house, and these were removed and gas heating installed, and the E7 meter (it has a day/normal rate and a night/low rate) was never removed, but that's not SE's fault.

macman

SE do not know how you heat or hot water your house, nor care less. If you tell them you have gas CH and DHW, they do not keep a record of it.
5 mins on a comp site with your annual kWh consumption figures will tell you which is most economic, E7 or single rate, just enter the figures twice, one with your percentage E7 split, and once for single rate.
Without knowing your actual usage you can't begin to make an informed decision-all the figures are on your annual statement. You were certainly given poor advice, but ultimately the choice of tariff is yours.